Jesus christ, we really need an actual proper community-run browser project.
"Mozilla this week said it has acquired ad metrics firm Anonym [...] Asked whether Mozilla has any concerns that its user base, many ardent ad-blockers among them, will oppose Anonym, a spokesperson for the Firefox house told The Register advertising as a business model is what allows the internet to be free and open to everyone, though there's still room for improvement."
Source: https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/18/mozilla_buys_anonym_betting_privacy/
@freakazoid @KuJoe The problem with Firefox forks is that they tend to track upstream (ie. there's only so much they can do, and they can't meaningfully diverge from Firefox's development path), and it's apparently really difficult to make it a proper diverging fork because of how complex the codebase is.
@joepie91 @KuJoe I agree, but it's the only real option for something usable *today* and it has so far successfully kept most of the contamination from Mozilla's shitty decisions out. It's by no means a solution, but honestly my goal right now is to hurt Mozilla. They make too many people think there's a viable alternative when there really isn't, so the sooner they die the better.
@joepie91 Holy shit. Fuck those people forever.
@joepie91 we need a neutral Blender-like fork of Firefox. Somehow...
@joepie91 building browser engines takes many years even with a lot of contributors. The complexity and sisyphean task of following modern web standards has meant almost nobody has built one from scratch (not even Mozilla) but, if we want a truly community-based browser, we might have to.
that's why I've had two such projects I have been watching over the years: Ladybird written in C++ by a community project turned nonprofit, and Servo a rust-based engine abandoned by Mozilla now run by the Linux foundation. Servo Is the most promising of the two but it's not ready yet imo
@Wolven Oh yeah, I am very well aware of the complexity.
I've commented about Ladybird before in another thread, but the summary of my opinion is that I'm happy it exists, but I don't think we should be betting the future of browsers on Yet Another C++ Codebase given how browsers are pretty much *the* attack surface on a modern system.
From a technical perspective, Servo is more promising to me, but I don't know how its governance will shake out. Organizations like the Linux Foundation tend to serve enterprise first and foremost, so I doubt that "a community browser" is actually what we'll get from that.
Neither really scream "yes! sustainable and responsible community project!" to me unfortunately, even though I'd rather that they exist than that they don't. But I would like for a new community project to do *better* than what we already have, not just maybe-possibly-hopefully approximate the status quo.
@Wolven Tangentially: I don't think a community browser project necessarily needs to achieve feature/spec parity to be considered successful, even at a large scale. "You must ship a complete product to achieve success" is a capitalist mode of thinking that we do not actually have to conform to in community projects.
I think it's entirely reasonable, for example, for the 'attractor' of the project to be "this is an inclusive, accessible and open development process that keeps improving every day, and so even though it doesn't do everything yet, you'll find it much more pleasant to use than the alternatives".
@joepie91 I’ve never wanted to pay for a browser more than right now.